Signed bands to play Halifax

Thursday of week three will see the first Halifax gig by a signed band in years. Ireland’s Director will headline the gig, with support from Lamacq favourites The Hair and Battle of the Bands finalists The Memos.

Director recently had an Irish top ten with their single ‘Reconnect’, and look set for similar success here, on the back of heavy promotion from their record company, Atlantic. The event, which will take place at JJ’s bar, will have a late licence.

Director’s Owen commented: “We play a lot of small campus gigs in Ireland. Having a band just makes it more of an event, especially in places that don’t have much of a gigging scene. Students tend to be more likely to listen with an open ear than people who can go to gigs all the time”. The band’s tour takes in the London and Glasgow Barflys, but they have decided against playing the York Barfly (Fibbers) in favour of JJ’s bar. Support act The Hair are relatively local, based in Leeds and York.

The URY-organised gig is just one manifestation of recent moves among record labels to promote their bands more heavily to students, even on small campuses like York. The organiser, URY’s Chris Havergal, claimed “labels want to work with URY to get their acts onto campus. It’s the way things are going”. Chris went on to say that “York’s campus generally has a complete scarcity of top-level acts, so to get an act who are signed to one of the UK’s top labels is quite a coup. This could be the start of something cool”.

While signed artists regularly play the YUSU events Fresh and GradBall, York hosts very few individual gigs. The last major gig on campus was in the autumn term of 2004, when Hope Of The States and The Open played in Vanbrugh Dining Hall. “People should turn up and support this event. It’s really good to get a signed band to play here for beer money,” said Chris Reed, URY’s new head of music. “Hopefully, if this event goes well we’ll be able to host many more like it”.